chuckling with delight and swinging on her arm.
‘Hey, Lee? Why you crying?’
Leona laughed, shook her head and wiped the dampness away. ‘I’m not, Han. It’s . . . it’s just . . . so pretty!’ She felt her throat tighten and knew that saying anything else right now would mean she’d probably end up blubbing like some old dear. She noticed amongst the other faces around her, turned upwards to gaze adoringly at the lights, the telltale glint of moist eyes.
Not just me then.
Hannah’s attention returned to the lights and she whooped with joy, then tugged Leona’s hand. ‘Can I go give Nanna and Uncle Walter a “well done” hug?’
Leona nodded and let her hand go, watching Hannah scoot off through the crowd towards her grandmother, realising how old she felt just then. Only twenty-eight and yet she felt like one of those sad old soldiers who got misty eyed at the sight of an RAF flyover on Remembrance Sunday. Old before her time.
Oh . . . to hell with it.
She let the tears roll; the lights becoming a blurred kaleidoscope. Laughing and crying at the same time as she suddenly realised all those pretty lights winding their way up the comms tower reminded her vaguely of Trafalgar Square on New Year’s Eve, Oxford Street at Christmas.
There was an orderly queue already forming beside the huge plastic ten-gallon drum containing Walter’s potato brew and Hamarra had started bashing out an old folk tune on her acoustic guitar. Rowena Falkirk - a silver-haired surly stick of a woman, unsurprisingly a friend of Alice’s - joined in on the fiddle; a playful tune that instantly lifted everyone’s spirits and had toes compulsively tapping.
Leona found herself humming along in her own tone-deaf and tuneless way before she even realised she was doing it.
Jacob and Nathan had managed to sneak a second tumbler of Walter’s brew before Jenny spotted them both queuing for a third and turfed them out of the line.
Sitting on the steps leading up to a Portakabin, Jacob found Valérie, smiling at the revelry going on around him. Walter’s concoction - limited to a mug per child and two per adult - had begun to weave its magic, taking the edge off the cool breeze and the damp and drizzle in the air.
‘It is a good party,’ said Valérie.
Nathan nodded. ‘Walt and Jake’s mum done well cool with them lights.’
Jacob found space on the step beside Valérie and sat down. ‘How’s your leg feeling?’
‘It is very sore, but it is healing well, I think.’
He looked at the man. Valérie looked much more presentable now he’d tidied himself up a little. He’d borrowed some trousers and a thick woolly jumper from the clothes-library. If Mum decided to let him stay, he’d be able to pick a whole wardrobe of clothes from the communal pile, and those would be his to wash and repair as needs be.
He wanted to quiz Valérie further on what he’d seen ashore whilst on his travels. Mum had said she’d heard enough from him for the moment and when he was feeling better she’d want to hear more details. But Jacob was eager to know more now. Stone-cold sober it would have felt presumptuous to corner him like this; emboldened by the drink, this felt as good a time as any.
‘You said there was nothing out there, Mr Latoc. Not a thing.’ He looked up at Nathan, standing with a foot on the bottom step and distractedly watching the party going on. ‘Me and Nate thought maybe, by now, there would be things getting themselves sorted out?’
Valérie shrugged sympathetically. ‘In the Europe that I have seen . . . no. There was too much migration of people. Eastern Europeans, North Africans all assuming France and Germany would be better organised to cope. Too many people. It was a very bad mess.’
‘And the United Kingdom?’ asked Nathan. ‘Is it really as bad as that?’
‘I sailed across to Dover,’ Valérie replied, shuffling on the hard metal grating of the step to find a more comfortable place. ‘Then I walked through, uh, Kent? Yes. Then north towards London.’
‘What did you eat?’
‘There is still food to be found. Much easier to find food actually in your country than in Europe.’
Jacob cocked his head. ‘Why’s that?’
‘You British died much faster at the time. The water was stopped when your power stopped, yes?’
Jacob nodded.
‘People drinking bad water and getting diseases very quick. In Europe; France, Germany had much better emergency plans, reserves of food